Talk:Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim

Meaning of legacy, *AND* blather that no published scholars agree on DOES NOT BELONG under legacy
1. Firstly, 'fixed some imprecise language.

2. Secondly, LEGACY means what was left behind by someone, in the context used here close in meaning to the person's REPUTATION, what s/he is KNOWN FOR. Obscure content that no published Mannerheim scholar says M is known for, does NOT belong under legacy. If someone wants to create a heading in this article called "Blog of Random Gossip, Obscure Media Projects Including Those that Never Got Made, and Rumors about His Love Life" then the stuff I deleted might have a home.

Sadly, RANDOM GOSSIP is what much of Wikipedia has become.

It doesn't serve this article and especially not its LEGACY section, e.g., to talk about (A) a movie that never was made, (B) a plaque in a foreign, hostile country that was REMOVED, or (C) unsubstantiated rumours about Mannerheim's flings with women, with boys, or whomever or whatever, or about which or what gender(s) he preferred sexually. ESPECIALLY if no published Mannerheim scholars agree that this is what he is known for. Absent the REMOVAL or NON-HAPPENING itself having affected what he is known for, it cannot be part of his legacy.

The placing of the Mannerheim statue in the forest outside Tampere, on the other hand, IS at least in some nominal way a legacy inasmuch as significant numbers of people, especially published scholars, recognize that placement IN THE CONTEXT OF Tampere's political and military history and Mannerheim's involvement there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.207.0 (talk) 17:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Some other red flags: 1. poorly written, in-places-incoherent use of English, indicating probable copy and paste from some other, likely foreign-language source. 2. it takes 4-5 sentences or more to explain what you're even talking about. (If it's something M is known for a sentence or two with a citation to scholarly work is plenty!) 3. Legacy-CANCELLING words in the actual description of the supposed legacy, e.g., "no consensus", "controversial claims", "rumor in Russia", "Mannerheim scholars have only reacted negatively and characterized the claim just a 'Russian fairy tale'."

CONSIDER: A LEGACY is what someone "leaves behind", What s/he is KNOWN FOR; *AND* one of the most basic rules of editing Wikipedia is that all content must be attributed to SCHOLARLY PUBLISHED SOURCES (although in fairness if this rule were enforced, the content of the "project" would shrink drastically; probably about 60-70 percent or more of the entire "encyclopedia" would have to be axed).

PLEASE ASK before placing anything under M's or anyone ELSE's legacy heading: 1. Is there any CONSENSUS among published scholars that the material is what the subject left behind, what s/he is known for? 2. Or if that is too great a burden, too high a standard, a good START would be are there even ONE or TWO published scholars who say this is something s/he is known for?

What it looks like happened here, is some junior high students or Putin trolls or whoever they were wanted to participate by adding something they heard about M that they thought was interesting. Since they couldn't find a proper heading under which the information belonged, and this was the last section written in sentence form, they just stuck it here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.207.0 (talk) 22:01, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Mannerheim's height
The article states:
 * The handsome young Baron towered over his classmates, standing 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m).

Shouldn't an article about a Finnish man attending a Finnish cadet school for the Russian army cite his height in metric first? Or does the cited source actually only give his height in imperial units? J I P &#124; Talk 21:25, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Mannerheim's alleged role in siege of Leningrad and/or other atrocities
1. I have moved the discussion of M's alleged role in the seige of Leningrad to the legacy section. It doesn't belong in the intro without being discussed also in the body of the article

2. The primary problem is those sources cited that I can find discuss almost exclusively the siege of Leningrad. There is mention of some angry communists in Leningrad throwing paint on a barracks marker noting the origins of M's service in the Czarist Russian military. There is also an article talking about a St. Pet. court finding Finland guilty of war crimes or ?
 * By WP standards, THESE do NOT qualify as scholarly sources, and in any case they do not appear to TIE M to siege of Leningrad.

3. *** AS SUCH, if this material is to stay, someone who wishes to keep it needs to provide a scholarly source tying M to the siege of Leningrad.


 * AND if it is not a consensus of the Mannerheim scholars, it should be stated for what it is. If the Russian viewpoint differs from the scholarly consensus among historians, then if it is to be included at all, it should be pointed out IN THE TEXT of the article what it is: a minority viewpoint from Russia.  It's unreasonable in this scenario to foist a minority viewpoint on WP readers as anything other than what it actually is!

After a reasonable time for finding and discussing the bonafides of any such sources, the sources need to be added OR the material deleted. Last time I checked "NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH" is one of the top ten tenets of all WP editing.

4. What I have seen in the past in this and similar articles is it comes down to the bonafides of scholarship of some post-Soviet Russian scholar, if in fact there even IS any such "scholar" in this case. I would have to defer to some WP Mannerheim historians more qualified than I on that matter, but I do NOT defer on the basic requirement for NO original research, even if a lot of WP editors routinely get away with violating this basic rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.115.22.242 (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Bidlack is an American history professor. The source reports that Finnish forces, led by Mannerheim, had a significant role in the Siege of Leningrad. Multiple other sources on the page support this. You're removing all content with all sources, including ones that meet standards. If you are after integrity, remove what is unsupported or not up to snuff, but it is disingenuous to suggest that an American history professor publishing through Yale in English, for example, is a questionable Russian view. Kievaughn (talk) 17:37, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Unsourced opinions of Wikipedia editors not permitted under WP:No original research
The problems with including this material are manifold: A. The offered sources do not appear to tie M to the atrocities claimed. B. Some of the cited sources are dead links. C. Iltalehti and Aamulehti are hardly scholarly sources; THEY also do not appear to tie M to the assertions made in the article. D. Under basic rules of composition, you can't bring up in the introduction material that is NOT discussed in the actual article.

1. Under English Wikipedia sourcing rules, I am requesting the editor(s) wishing to include this material to provide English translations for the material requested to be included. In the case of the Iltalehti article, in addition to it being a suspect source, it DOES NOT MAKE the assertions that the editors are trying to include in the article. As an editor you CANNOT draw inferences or your own conclusions from source material EVEN IF IT IS accepted by scholars. If the/an editor can provide a quote from ANY OF THE SOURCES offered that make the same assertions as the editors are making AFAIAC it would be fine to include the material in the article, but unless it's something more scholarly than Iltalehti or Aamulehti, it should be QUALIFIED as such, NOT stated as fact AND NOT STATED as a scholarly position, unless some consensus of editors agrees that IS a scholarly position on M.

2. It is NOT a case of burying the material at all. Quite the contrary: If the assertions are supported by scholarly sources OR ANY sources to start with, it can be included. But it needs to be INTRODUCED IN THE INTRODUCTION, then expanded on in an appropriate section of the body of the article.

3. The disputed material is being removed here to TALK until such time it is properly sourced INCLUDING the INFERENCES AND CONCLUSIONS SPECIFICALLY ABOUT M that are largely or entirely NOT covered in the sources.


 * TO INCLUDE THE MATERIAL, the editor wishing to do so needs to provide supporting quotes ABOUT MANNERHEIM from the citations s/he is listing because I do not see them and doubt they exist. Then if such supporting sources can be proved, the material needs to be INTRODUCED in the INTRODUCTION and continued in an appropriate section of the article, NOT all just DUMPED in the intro, NEVERMORE to be discussed again! ***

It is specifically NOT allowed under WP:No original research for an editor to take cited source material, then expand on it with his/her OWN conclusions, inferences, etcetera--EVEN IF those conclusions are reasonable. I am NOT saying that here the conclusions ARE reasonable.

One basic example of non-permitted connections on the part of a WP editor is that a s/he cannot on the basis the AH visited MM on MM's 75th birthday and/or on the basis that Finland was an ally or "co-belligerent" or WHATEVER at the time of German operations around Leningrad OR anywhere ELSE declare in the WP article that MM is therefore a collaborator of AH. In the case of the birthday visit it is a non sequitur. BUT... even if you could find a hundred or a thousand examples of MM/AH get-togethers in a war context or just as friends, you CANNOT call them collaborators UNLESS some qualifying source (or ANY source to start with) actually CALLS them collaborators or words to that effect. That's what NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH MEANS. ''as well as his role in the siege of Leningrad, a joint campaign with Nazi Germany, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 900,000 to more than 1,000,000 civilians, including women and children, and has been deemed a genocide by the Russian government as well as some historians. Mannerheim approved the use of Finnish troops in the Waffen-SS, where some probably committed atrocities against Jews, prisoners of war, and civilians; he was also a personal collaborator of Adolf Hitler. ''

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.181.119.176 (talk) 10:10, 28 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Ah, I didn't know about this rule! So I'll go ahead and remove all Finnish language sources and related text. Kievaughn (talk) 08:46, 20 November 2023 (UTC)